Natural Gas

Natural gas is a nonrenewable fossil fuel that is closely related to oil. It is drilled from the same wells as crude oil or it is later removed in the distilling process. Similar to the national trend, natural gas in Pennsylvania is used for heating purposes and generation of electricity.

Pennsylvania has limited production capabilities for natural gas. The commonwealth ranks fourteenth in production within the country, but numbers will likely increase with a new importance placed on the energy. Most natural gas supplied to Pennsylvania has been piped in from surrounding states and Canada.

In the U.S., natural gas is used increasingly for generating electricity. Scientists predict 900 of the next 1,000 power plants will be built to run on natural gas. This cleaner burning fuel, compared to coal or oil, is also associated with heating fuel for homes and businesses and has the potential to replace gasoline as a transportation fuel. Due to its cleaner burning and domestic production, there are many possibilities for natural gas in the future.

Note

This is a static, archived version of the PHMC Energy website which will not be updated. It is a snapshot of the website with minor modifications as it appeared on November 20, 2015.